


mostly dead is slightly alive

by Tator



Category: Druck | SKAM (Germany)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst with a Happy Ending, Forced Marriage, Kidnapping, M/M, Pirates, Swordfighting, The Princess Bride AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-05
Updated: 2020-01-05
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:27:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22125586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tator/pseuds/Tator
Summary: “There’s a boat!” Jonas yells to the plump man, pointing frantically behind them and waving to the others to come see. “Right there behind us!” Matteo shakes out some of the sleep behind his eyes and tries to see over the railing at what they all were crowding against it at one side to see, but he wasn’t able to see anything besides his fingers turning a little bit purple and puffy around his knuckles.“Do you think it’s the prince?” Jonas asks.“No, no, that would be inconceivable,” the leader says mostly to himself, and Matteo starts to wonder if he knows what that word means. Or maybe it was Matteo who didn’t know what it meant. Either way, someone wasn’t thinking of that word the right way.or a princess bride au
Relationships: Matteo Florenzi/David (Druck)
Comments: 19
Kudos: 102





	mostly dead is slightly alive

**Author's Note:**

> so this is a princess bride au that i started months ago at this point, finally finished in all her glory! no previous knowledge of the movie is needed!
> 
> disclaimer - it is not nearly as funny as the actual movie. it only focuses on matteo's (who is essentially buttercup) pov of all the action, so some of the more famous bits of the movie, such as miracle max, are not included, as tragic as it may be
> 
> hope you guys enjoy :)

Matteo gets kidnapped in the middle of the day and feels relieved. The kidnapper, whoever they may be, comes up behind him, whacks him on the back of the neck with something hard, and all he can think of on his way down to the floor is _oh thank god._

***

_A man with stormy eyes and callouses on his hands once told him, “I love you, Matteo. I love you more than this life itself, and the sea won’t change that. I’ll dig myself out of a watery grave if I have to”-_

“I think he’s waking up,” Matteo hears. He shakes his head to get some of the ringing out of his ears, and he wants to groan, to stretch out the thrumming in his jaw and the stinging in his neck. But he’s afraid to move when it feels like there are too many pairs of eyes staring at him, seeing what he’s about to do. He’s crouched down and shoved up against a railing with his hands tied up above his head and his ankles bared together a similar way.

“Ah! He is!” A nasally voice drills out.

Matteo cracks an eye open and sees three men before him. A big one, bigger than he’s ever seen, a giant maybe. A man with boyish looks and fluffy hair who has a small smile that seems almost like it was written with apology. And a small man who was short as he was plump and had clothes on that looked like they were expensive in a faraway land once upon a time, but also like they didn’t fit quite right. That one must be the voice, he thinks. Doesn’t seem likely to be the others, unless their voices were all going to be startling different than their looks suggested.

“My lord,” the plump one greets with a maniacal smile. The boyish one looks down and away behind him, and the giant starts to whisper something to him quickly that makes the boy shake his head. “I’m sure you are wondering what our plans are with you.”

“To kill me, I suppose,” Matteo says, bored with this already. Must they try and talk with him? Was kidnapping and plotting his death not enough? God, just get it over with already, Matteo thinks.

“Oh, well, yes,” the plump one responds like he was put out at not getting to tell Matteo himself, but really this was all a cliché at this point. This man certainly couldn’t be shocked that he knew what was going on. Matteo could find the same plot in any of the stories that his Mama would tell him to get him to fall asleep as a boy, though perhaps a ruggedly handsome prince wasn’t going to save him from this one, perhaps that isn’t what Matteo would want anyways. There was only one prince in these parts, one that Matteo was happy to escape from. 

“Okay, then,” Matteo says and sighs. “Here then?” He asks and looks around at the small boat they were on. They were rocking slowly, so they must not be out at sea where the waves are particularly violent near the coast. No, they must be in the channel. A boat this size won’t survive anywhere else. This might be a good place to die, honorable, though Matteo would quite prefer the sea if he had a choice.

“No,” the man starts. He must be glad to at least tell Matteo part of his evil plan. “Across the channel, in the new duke and duchess’ land to start a war between your betrothed and him that will completely crumble the entire region’s economy. The plan- why, it’s inconceivable!”

“Inconceivable, right,” Matteo nods and looks out at the sky where the stars were just starting to peak out. It would only take a few hours to pass through the waters if they weren’t too harsh, which they shouldn’t be on a clear night like tonight. Good, Matteo thinks. Not too long then. He always hated waiting.

The plump man, the leader clearly, keeps looking at him and blinks. “Oh sorry, was there something else you wanted to add?” Matteo asks, not wanting to step on his moment too much but also very disinterested in anything else he would have to say at this point. He may be impatient, but he was at the very least polite.

The man looks startled for a moment, perhaps at the lack of reaction from Matteo, a lack of desperation for his own life, but to be quite honest, Matteo didn’t really have one, a reaction. And if he did, he certainly wouldn’t show it to these thugs for them to get any satisfaction from it. “Uh, no,” the man says. He snaps at the boyish one. “You watch him. Make sure he doesn’t try and escape! It would be inconceivable!”

The man nods at the same time he tries to cover up his eye roll, and the plump man seems satisfied enough because he turns to walk to the other side of the boat with the giant following him. The boyish one throws himself down against the railing next to Matteo and makes some sort of noise when he hits the ground. He looks at Matteo and smiles that same smile again, like he’s sorry about something but not sorry enough to do anything about it. “Hey, I’m Jonas,” he says and holds out his hand.

“Matteo,” he responds and waves his tied-up fingers where they’re still above his head tightly against the railing. They were starting to get a little tingly being kept above his head.

“Oh, right, sorry,” Jonas says. “Can I ask you a question?”

Matteo raises an eyebrow. “I certainly have nothing better to do.”

“Right, right, sorry. But, uh, I don’t suppose you have six fingers on your right hand?”

Matteo blinks and then looks up at his hand just to be sure. “No, only five, I’m afraid.”

“Rightly so,” Jonas says and nods solemnly. And Matteo knows there is a story there but doesn’t bother asking.

They sit there for a little while longer, but Matteo’s lack of conversation must make Jonas bored with him because after a while he stands and goes to look at some knots near the sails without any sort of conviction about them. Matteo thumps his head back against the railing and ignores the way the nobs were digging uncomfortably into his spine. It could be worse, he supposed. He thinks they would at least kill him quickly. They have no reason to drawl it out at all, and they don’t seem the particularly violent type, besides the whole murder plot ordeal. And then- and then he would finally be free. The other side doesn’t seem so bad. Not bad at all.

***

_It was a cold night. It was cold and clear, and the harvest moon was high in the sky to help the people see into the fields at their crops. It was so bright that Matteo almost couldn’t see the stars, but there was boy there, a boy with shoulders in a straight line and a smile brighter than the sun. And Matteo had no problem looking into that light and still seeing straight. So he leans in close and points to the sky, and the boy nods like he’s interested. And Matteo leans in to kiss him because he thought he could see some of the constellations in the spots on his face, and-_

“There’s a boat!” Jonas yells to the plump man, pointing frantically behind them and waving to the others to come see. “Right there behind us!”

Matteo shakes out some of the sleep behind his eyes and tries to see over the railing at what they all were crowding against it at one side to see, but he wasn’t able to see anything besides his fingers turning a little bit purple and puffy around his knuckles.

“Do you think it’s the prince?” Jonas asks.

“No, no, that would be inconceivable,” the leader says mostly to himself, and Matteo starts to wonder if he knows what that word means. Or maybe it was Matteo who didn’t know what it meant. Either way, someone wasn’t thinking of that word the right way.

“It looks like it’s just one man,” the giant says in a low and rumbling voice and points over the edge, resting his other hand against his forehead to block the morning light from his eyes.

“The prince wouldn’t send one man to rescue the lord, would he?” Jonas asks and looks back towards Matteo as if he had an answer. He didn’t. Didn’t care either.

“No! He’s to send the cavalry for him!” The plump one cries out.

Matteo wonders if that’s true, if he was worth a cavalry at all, or maybe if the prince would find it beneficial to him and his plot to have his so-called beloved fiancé die on foreign lands and start a war in his fallen honor. Matteo wouldn’t put it past him, wouldn’t put much past him to be quite frank.

“It doesn’t matter,” the leader says. “We’re almost at the shore. We’ll go up the rock face, and you’ll stop him at the top,” he says towards Jonas. And Matteo is curious why he would send Jonas to fight. He doesn’t seem like he could hurt a fly with his little grins and awkward introductions with slightly inappropriate questions about appendage numbers, but then Matteo notices the sword on his hip that has a worn handle and a well taken care of sheath. What would have happened if he had six fingers on his right hand, he thinks. Maybe he wouldn’t have made it to the duke’s lands at all. Maybe it wouldn’t have been as quick of a death as he initially expected.

Matteo puts his head against the railing and tries to guess which way this new day is going to go, if and how he would make it to the other side, but he has a feeling it might be just a little bit inconceivable all around.

Once they get to the shore, Matteo is released from the railing only for his arms to be thrown over the back of the giant’s neck like he was some sort of rag doll the giant was carrying around in a sack. The plump man and Jonas both tie themselves to each of the giant’s arms, and to Matteo’s great surprise, the giant starts scaling up a pre-staged rope like he had no weight on him at all! He scales up the rocky cliff in just minutes, just moments of going up and up and up, and Matteo tells himself not to look down. He was always afraid of heights. He fell off a ladder in the barn when he was just small, and ever since then can hardly look down more than a two-yard drop without getting a little lightheaded. Looking down at where the shore meets the cliff’s edge would have Matteo spill his guts right onto the back of the giant’s neck, and even though the giant seemed to be a nice man, he would probably hardly appreciate that.

They make it to the top with Matteo trying to distract himself the entire way up, thinking of something- _anything_ other than the edge and tumbling over it, and the plump man and Jonas exchange a few words before the giant starts following the leader around some rocks and into the woods with Matteo still dangling uncomfortable on his back.

Once his shoulders start screaming in at the stretch, he says, “I can walk, you know. You don’t have to carry me.”

“You weigh nothing,” the giant says at the same time the leader exclaims, “You’ll try to run!”

“I won’t. I have no reason to,” Matteo explains, and he’s being honest.

“No, no, you will,” the plump one argues. “Knock him out.”

Matteo goes to sputter out some sort of argument while the giant is reaching over his shoulder. The last thing he hears before a splintering pain shoots down from his neck is, “Lightly this time, giant!”

***

_It was a quiet night when a bottle fell in through Matteo’s window filled with stories about running away from the past and adventures, and filled with poems of a beautiful lover that Matteo knew at one point to be him. He looks over his window and sees a boy with floppy hair that usually falls in his eyes if he isn’t wearing that wool hat that his sister knitted for him last winter. He wants to be a writer, Matteo thinks, smiling down at him, filled with something warm and sweet. He wants to be a writer with long and loopy letters who spends all day spelling out odes over a desk, and he’s got the hands of a stable boy and the-_

Matteo comes to again when he his back hits the ground and something prickly digs into the fleshy part of his arm. He shoots up and whips his head around, sucking in a deep breath that had been knocked from his lungs. The plump man is there, grabbing him by his bound-up wrists and hoisting him back up to his feet that were cut free at one point when he was out.

“You’ll have to stop him!” The man shouts to the giant, and Matteo has to close his eyes at the sound and try to remember who they were trying to stop. Oh, right, the man in the boat, he remembers. Jonas must not have stopped him with his well-used sword and half-smiles. Well, that’s too bad. He seemed like a nice fellow on his good days, Matteo think. Now it was up to the giant, he supposed. Surely a man of his size and stature would be able to beat a single, normal man. Surely.

The plump man starts dragging Matteo behind him who wasn’t too used to being on his feet quite yet and stumbles over the rocks and roots littering the ground. “This is just completely against the plan!” The man mutters to himself. “Completely-“

“Let me guess. Inconceivable.” Matteo interrupts. He wants to laugh, but the man certainly doesn’t. It only makes Matteo want to laugh more for some reason. This entire thing feels ridiculous and fitting all at once, though he can’t place exactly why.

He gets dragged out to a hilly field that reminds him of something that he was fine with forgetting, and the man keeps looking behind him like he was afraid of a ghost coming out of the trees behind them. And maybe he is, afraid, that is because at one point he says something under his breath and tugs Matteo down onto a rock in front of them and then throws a bag over his head. Where he got the bag, Matteo has no idea, but it smells a bit like onions. And Matteo can’t help but think about how terribly overdone this was again and also about this man eating nothing but onions when he came up with his plan to kill him and start an economically devastating war. It’s a funny thought at the least. He wants to laugh again, but the moment hardly calls for it.

“If those two buffoons couldn’t go it, I’ll just have to do it myself!” The man yells, and Matteo is sure he’s not supposed to respond anything with his hands still tied in front of him and a god forsaken bag over his head, but he desperately wants to say something witty just because he can, because this man seriously had the audacity to kidnap him in the middle of his day so he should at least suffer the bare minimum of his personality. He holds his tongue though if not to prove he has some sort of self-restraint. Not much though, he thinks. Yet just enough.

There’s a long pause where Matteo considers just making a run for it because the lull in activity. He certainly could outrun this little man who is fine with letting others do his work for him and make it back to the woods where he was sure to lose him if he hadn’t already. He could cut the ropes on a particularly sharp rock that was sure to be around, and he knew enough about the berries of this region to live a couple of days off those alone while he made his journey to civilization again. The stars would show him his way to somewhere worth staying. They always did.

“Ah, here he is, the man in black!” The man says, interrupting Matteo’s daydream of making a great escape, of being free of it all. Something sharp and cold is held up to his neck, and Matteo tips his head back and sucks in a breath through his front teeth, trying not to move to close to what is sure to be a dagger. Maybe this man had it in him after all. “You have bested both of my men, so I most certainly could not beat you physically. But you are no match for my intellect!”

Matteo wants to laugh. He thinks the other man does, which right by him. “You think that highly of yourself?” He asks smooth and strong, and his voice pulls at something in Matteo’s heart that’s nostalgic and melancholic all at once. He elects to ignore it due to the current crowd.

“Have you heard of Plato? Aristotle? Socrates?” The man pauses for a dramatic effect that wasn’t too dramatic feeling at all, knowing enough about this man’s ego to see where he was going. “All morons! Nothing compared to me!” 

Matteo wished he wasn’t blindfolded because just to see what this other man’s face could be doing at that declaration of hubris. It was a shame his own was covered. He certainly had something silent yet delightfully judgmental to add to this whole conversation.

“A test then? Your wits against mine,” the man in black suggests, and Matteo doesn’t know how to feel about that particular idea. While he would love to see the nasally man defeated in a way that was sure to be soul crushing for him, Matteo did not know what the man in black’s priorities were, what he wanted with him.

“For the lord?”

“Yes.”

“To the death?” The nasally man asks with a little more enthusiasm than the last question. And Matteo thinks the only one to die would be him- of boredom at this whole conversation.

“Of course.”

“Then I accept!” The knife gets removed from Matteo’s throat, and he sags forward in something attune to relief, if there was any to be felt with kidnappers fighting over who was to take him. At least this was getting a little interesting.

“Very well, pour the wine. And smell this but do not touch it.” And Matteo wonders where they got any of these things, but he hadn’t been paying very close attention to the nasally man before. And he certainly had no idea what the man in black had, what he brought to the table.

“I smell nothing.”

“Ah, for it is iocane powder, a deadly poison with no taste and no smell. I will put it in one of the glasses.” There’s a pause where Matteo assumes the iocane is going in a glass, and he suddenly wishes once again that he could see the scene in front of him. The absurdity of this whole thing was certainly something to try to remember. “Right then, choose the glass. We will drink to see who is right and, well, who is dead.”

“Ah, what a simple test indeed! I must choose if you would put the poison in your own goblet or your enemy’s. A clever man, which you have assured me you are, would put the poison in his own glass for only a fool would reach for what was given to him, and I am no fool. So, I clearly cannot choose the wine in front of you, but you would have known I am no great fool. Therefore, I cannot choose the wine in front of me.”

“Have you chosen then?”

“Not hardly! Because iocane comes from Australia. _Everyone_ knows that! And what is in Australia?” Another pause. Matteo is hardly waiting with bated breath. “Criminals! And criminals cannot be trusted, just as you are not to be trusted by me so clearly I cannot choose the poison that is in front of you.”

“Your intellect is marveling,” the other man says with sarcasm dripping off his tongue, and Matteo wants to laugh. But he’s able to stifle his scoff and pretend it was some sort of cough. He doesn’t think either of the men noticed because the plump one continues on like it was nothing.

“Wait til I get going! Now, where was I?”

“Australia,” Matteo fills in because he kind of wants to see how this is going to end at this point.

“Right, Australia! Now, you surely must have suspected that I knew the origins of the powder, which means I cannot trust the wine in front of me.”

“You’re stalling now,” the other man says, and Matteo must agree.

“Not hardly,” the plump man spits out. “Now, you’ve beaten my giant, so you clearly have an immense amount of strength. So, you could put the poison in your own glass, hoping your strength to save you. I cannot trust the glass in front of you then. But you also bested my swordsman, and those trained in the art of the sword certainly know the curse of the mortal man. So, you would have put the poison as far from you, meaning I cannot trust the wine in front of me.”

“You’re trying to trick me to give something away, and it won’t work. I won’t.”

“But you’ve given everything away! I know where the poison is!”

“Then make your choice,” the man in black urges.

“What’s that over there?” The plump man yells out, and Matteo almost wants to cry with how bad this whole thing is just so incredibly ludicrous. Someone just drink the poison already! He was starting to get terribly bored with this again.

“What? I see nothing,” he says after a beat.

“Well then. It’s no matter. I shall choose my own glass, and we shall drink,” the man says bubbling up with laughter that shakes the rock him and Matteo are sitting on.

“You choose wrong,” the pirate says with such conviction that Matteo believes him, though he’s sure to not have any real reason to.

But the plump man is still shrieking with a laughter that was making Matte’s ears hurt. “No!” He screeches. “It is _you_ who is wrong! You see I switched the glasses when you weren’t looking! Have you never heard to not mess with a Sicilian when death is on the line?” He continues to laugh hysterically on and on, and on and on, until he stops, stops short and quick.

Matteo hears a thump beside him. The rock shifts where the man’s weight falls off of it.

“To think you poisoned your own glass,” Matteo muses to himself.

“Both of them were poisoned,” the man, his new captor, corrects. “I’ve built up an immunity to iocane power over the past year.”

The man takes the bag off of Matteo’s head, and he has to scrunch his eyes up at the sudden influx of sun light. He blinks a few times and shakes his head until he’s able to see the man crouching in front of him. Matteo tilts his head, looking at him, trying to place this man, trying to decide if he knew him or not. He wasn’t one of the prince’s men, that he was sure of, which means he didn’t have to go back, not yet at least. But he didn’t feel like he could say he had never seen him before today. His heart started pounding in his chest like it recognized this man with a strong jaw, but Matteo’s eyes were saying his heart was deceiving him, that this man in a mask was a stranger though his eyes looked like something he had seen before.

“Who are you?” Matteo asks bewildered and not liking the way he was feeling off balance.

The man pauses, like he was waiting for something a little more monumental to happen. “Someone not to be trifled with,” he says after a moment. He looks down at the plump man that was dead on the floor and hoists Matteo to his feet.

They walk in silence for long enough that Matteo has already contemplated at least three different escape attempts and four different ways to start a conversation that were at least mildly interesting to him. But every time he goes to open his mouth, he closes it when the man looks over at him like he too was waiting for Matteo to say something, anything. Eventually, the boredom and curiosity of the situation overshadow his hesitation.

“What do you plan to do with me?” Matteo asks as he trails behind the man in black with his arm around Matteo’s elbow, making him feel like he was overheating.

“I have yet to decide,” the man admits and his grip tightens on Matteo’s arm with an reflex at something. Matteo screws his face up to the side at the affirmation of the man’s inconclusion.

“Humor me so,” Matteo says and tugs his arm back and away from the man’s grasp just so he could take a breath away from the contact. He could walk perfectly fine on his own anyways, has been able to the entire time these men have decided to parade him around as if he couldn’t. “Certainly a man who fought off three worthy opponents has some sort of idea what he was planning on doing, or at least a few options.”

The man spins around and stops in front of him, pulling the edge of his mask further down his face between his fingertips as if he was afraid to give anything away, his nose, his cheekbones, the crinkles around his eyes. And Matteo is bold enough to admit that he would like to see it, all of it, if only to satisfy something that was making his heart flutter that said this man was worth knowing in some way. “I could return you to the prince. Collect a bounty I’m sure is on your head-“

“No,” Matteo interrupts before he is able to stop himself, and the man tilts his head to the side as if he was curious with that answer. “I would rather you release me into the forest to fend for myself,” Matteo admits as he swallows, feeling nervous under the man’s gaze for a reason he can’t quite place. He rubs his nose with the back of his hand, bringing the other with it where they were still bound. “Any bounty he is willing to offer, I could match, if it is the coin you’re after.”

“I’m not interested in coin,” the man scoffs and shakes his head, which leaves Matteo feeling confused, but the man doesn’t elaborate on his little show of emotion. He turns back around, tugging on Matteo’s elbow again to get them moving. “Tell me, my lord,” he says after a moment. “Why is it you are so willing to commit to your own demise before you return to the prince?”

“I’m sure that it is none of your concern,” Matteo says, tugging his arm back to himself but keeping pace.

“Humor me so,” the man says, looking over at Matteo with something almost playful in his eyes, and Matteo has to look away when it makes something unearth in him somewhere in his chest, something sweet, and caring, and far too personal for a man he just met, a man who is kidnapping him as they speak. The flutter intensifies, and it makes Matteo feel ill. “I’ll trade something for your answer.”

“What?” Matteo asks sure there is nothing that they could possibly trade under the circumstance.

“I’ll-“ And the man stops, probably thinking the same thing that Matteo had, before settling on something he deemed acceptable. “I’ll untie you.”

And Matteo stops in his tracks and looks at the man for any sort of trickery. His hands had been tingling on and off for half a day at this point, turning various colors and itching. Relieving himself of that discomfort was tempting enough. “Very well,” he says and holds his hands out towards the man to make sure he holds his end of the bargain first before Matteo opens his lips. The man undoes the knots easily enough. The nasally man before him was a fool after all, regardless of what he claimed. Matteo could have undone them with his teeth without too much effort if he wasn’t under someone’s watchful gaze the whole time.

“Well?” The man prompts as Matteo rubs the lines around his wrists, ignoring the static in them as the blood reached the ends of his fingers again. “The prince?”

Matteo hums and starts walking again, figuring that if he would run from this man, he might actually get caught, and that would be a shame. “He is a cruel man,” Matteo says. “There is no love between us.”

“Certainly being the prince’s fiancé has it’s perks,” the man rebuttals. “A fancy castle, a nice life, no worries about if food will end up on your plate. Things that can make you overlook a lack of affections.”

And Matteo sneers at him. “You ask for my reason and then laugh at my pain.”

“Life is pain, my dear, anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something,” the man laughs for real this time in a cold and distant way that makes Matteo’s fingers curl up into his palms. Running was looking more appealing.

“Do not refer to me as such,” he spits out and picks up his pace, feeling the tips of ears start to itch as he remembers the way someone from long ago used to call him something of the same nature, used to call him it with honey and sweets in the flicks of his voice, with molasses and roses in the sparkles of his eyes and made Matteo feel as if they were the only two people in the whole wide world, indulging themselves in the pleasures of life as they whispered to each other. The prince came to call him the same, and overshadowed his warm memories with something cold and dark. He tried to hold onto the light as best he could, for as long as he could, but some days it was harder than others. Today- today he didn’t know which one was winning out.

The man hums and matches Matteo’s steps. “So, you do not wish to return to the prince. Very well,” the man says. “I could take you back to my ship. Make you work the decks until I find something more useful for you to do.”

“Your ship?” Matteo repeats.

“Right,” the man says absentmindedly.

“What then? You’re a pirate?” Matteo asks.

The man looks over at him. “Quite so,” he says. “You couldn’t tell?” He asks holding his arms out and gesturing towards himself, his detailed sword and dagger attached to his hip, another in his boot with a chip in the handle. He was wearing all black, nothing to really give him away in those regards. But, there was a scar across his jaw, down the side in a zigzag pattern that would be unflattering on most, though it seemed to fit in with his eyes. And-

Matteo stops, remembering stories he was told about those on the seas, stories he thought to be myths most days of the men one should fear when venturing too far from the coast, and one in particular with a scar down his jaw who had a temper hot as coal with a taste for blood to match. Matteo believed him to be a false villain until he learned that the stories could not be any truer. “What do they call you then? Out on the sea?” He asks, feeling like he knew the answer.

“Roberts,” the man replies simply.

And Matteo feels cold, like someone had stuffed snow in his back for it to drip down his spine, as time slows around him and he thinks of kind eyes, and gentle smiles, and bright laughter, and quiet words, and a simple type of affection that left Matteo feeling fulfilled as it was written into old parchment with ink that was mixed with a love that he knew was honest, and then feeling alone all at once as the universe cruelly ripped it from his palms without a second thought and burned the letters right in front of him. And, Matteo never even got to say goodbye, never even got to say that he’ll meet him on the other side, never even-

His hand shoots up without him even thinking anything through, and the heel of his hand connects with Roberts’ jaw who falls backwards onto his hands more in shock than from the force of the hit. And Matteo follows after him, curling his hand into a fist and connecting with the same place on his jaw as he grits his teeth and goes to strike him again when Roberts grabs at his elbow and flips him on his back.

“What has come over you?” The man yells in his face, grabbing the rope from his hips and wrapping it around Matteo’s wrists quickly, tying a thick knot tightly.

“I hope you rot,” Matteo bites out into his face and spits at his feet when he grabs his wrist to get him standing again.

Roberts grips his wrist hard enough to hurt, hard enough to rub the bones together, but Matteo could hardly feel it over the way the blood was pounding throughout his body, making a deafening sort of noise in his ears that got him gritting his teeth and thinking terrible thoughts. “There is still time, my lord,” Roberts says with his nose ticked up in a sneer. “I assure you of that.”

“I hope I live to see it,” Matteo spits back, and the pirate steadies him a look that is somewhere in between fury and disappointment before using his grip on Matteo’s wrist to tug him along behind him.

They start walking and don’t stop until they’re deep in the forest. And Matteo would usually be afraid, being out in the woods this late, but he gets a sick sort of satisfaction knowing that if a beast were to come out and attack them, he would at least get to see Roberts get eaten with him. That would at least be worth it, Matteo thinks, his anger keeping him upright even after a day as long and tiring as the one he has had.

Eventually, Roberts comes to stop in an area under a large oak tree with a small clearing free of too many tangled trees and pushes Matteo onto a log to sit. He steps back from him, looking at him for a moment that Matteo couldn’t classify too well in the dark.

“If I untie you, will you hit me again?” The dreaded pirate Roberts asks with a sigh, and Matteo looks over the bruise that was starting to darken along his jawline. 

He spits at his feet when he gets closer. “Let us see,” he says, already balling his hands into fists. His wrists flex against the rope and make it dig unpleasantly into his skin, but Matteo hardly feels it with the adrenaline that’s spiking up his spine, keeping him upright and ready to fight. 

The pirate sighs and goes to kneel in front of where Matteo is slouched. He takes out his knife from the sheath on the side of his hip, and for a second, Matteo thinks that he might cut him with it, not bad. He’s not afraid that the pirate would decide just now to kill him, not after all the work he put into kidnapping him from his kidnappers before and then dragging him around after him, but maybe he just wanted to scare Matteo a bit, remind him he was the Dread Pirate Roberts after all, hailing from the northern seas and causing havoc everywhere the ocean touches.

He doesn’t, cut him that is. Instead, he cuts the rope right down the middle, freeing Matteo’s hands, but before he could snatch them away, strike at the pirate again, hit him right in the nose maybe make a run for it, the pirate grips his wrists, right at where the rope rubbed the skin raw, and holds them tight towards his chest. 

“Don’t you see that I’m trying to help you, my lord?” The pirate asks through gritted teeth, like he was in pain, like the fact that Matteo was trying to run was hurting him. 

“I don’t want help from you,” Matteo responds, hissing through his teeth and tries to free his wrists, only to the have the man grip onto them tighter, pull him closer until Matteo is leaning down close to his space. 

The pirate looks at him then, really looks at him, and Matteo wished he could do the same. He was still wearing that black mask, concealing half of his face and his hair and ears, so Matteo could only really guess what was underneath, what the person that the was haunting the great oceans could possibly look like to cause all that terror. He could only guess what the face of his love’s killer could possibly look like, and he hated that he thought this man, this murderer, might be a little bit handsome under the fabric. It was in his eyes, Matteo thought. He had beautiful eyes. There was something eerily familiar about them. 

His wrists were burning where the pirate gripped them. 

“I saved you,” the pirate said. 

“I didn’t need saving,” Matteo scowls back. 

“They were going to kill you,” the man argues, and he sounds a little bit angry at that, like him picking the kidnappers off one by one wasn’t a bad enough fate for them.

“You should have let them,” Matteo responds, believing it to be true, twisting his wrists around. “I won’t go back.” 

“I said wasn’t going to take you back, didn’t I?” 

“Then where?” Matteo asks, feeling his frustration rise talking in circles like this. “You refuse to give me answers.”

“My ship. I told you so.” 

“No,” Matteo says and yanks one of his hands free to push the pirate away from him, to make a break for it, but Roberts was too fast, got his balance back quick enough, and grabbed back onto his wrist to tug him back in line. “I won’t go with you, either!” 

“You would rather I leave you here to die then?” And the pirate sounds furious still. 

“Yes! I won’t go anywhere with _you_.” 

And the pirate tilts his head at that, to the side, in a way that makes something deep in Matteo’s heart start to ache a little bit with something he hasn’t felt in a while. Grief, maybe. Or perhaps a love that hasn’t been forgotten as much as purposefully misplaced. This pirate reminded him of things he thought he had long ago buried, and it was starting to greatly irritate him. 

“Why not? I’m rescuing you.” 

“You’re a killer,” Matteo spits back.

“Ah, and how can you prove that? I could be a very morally upright pirate, you know.” 

“You took over a ship, five summers ago, a navy ship, and killed everyone aboard,” Matteo says with a lump in his throat, even though he’s told the story a thousand times it feels like, even though he plays it over and over in his head, still trying to come to terms with it after all this time. 

“And you knew someone on that ship?” Roberts prompts. “A friend?” He asks, and Matteo doesn’t answer, just leans back and thinks about kicking him in the sternum, getting his feet free and making a dash for it. “A lover, perhaps?” The pirate asks after a moment. 

Matteo stills, doesn’t say a word, but the answer must be written on his face. 

“I see,” the pirate says. “What if-” he stops, licks his lips and looks off to the side. “What if I told you that some on that ship were spared? That they became part of my crew and have remained there of their own free will?” 

“I would say it was a trick,” Matteo says, knowing when to not get his hopes up. 

“What if I told you that we’ve met before, you and I?” Roberts asks, and Matteo gets confused about what this man could be up to. Perhaps he wasn’t a pirate at all. Perhaps he was a witch or something worse. Perhaps he was trying to get something from him. What, he didn’t know. It wasn’t like he had anything left to give these days.

“Another trick,” Matteo answers. 

“I can prove it,” the pirate says. “I’ll take off my mask if you promise to stay long enough to see.” 

“I make no such promise.” 

“Ah, but I can tell you’re a bit curious, aren’t you?” He asks, and Matteo looks at him, feeling found out. The pirate looks at him steadily for a moment, and then one by one, takes his fingers from around Matteo’s wrist and moves his hand slowly to push up his mask. It feels like they’re in a tub of molasses with how time seems to be moving thick around them. The pirate is staring right into Matteo’s eyes as Matteo watches the skin of his face slowly get exposed. His nose, his cheekbones, and-

“It can’t be,” Matteo whispers in something that a mix between shock and horror. “It can’t. This is a trick!” He yells, and goes to strike the pirate wearing his dead lover’s face, but he must learn quickly. He grabs his hand. 

“No, it’s not a trick,” the pirate says, and it sounds like he’s pleading. “It’s not a trick, my love,” he says, and Matteo’s heart stops at the way those words fall out of his mouth. 

He squeezes his eyes shut and hangs his head low between his shoulders, sucking in a breath that doesn’t make it too his lungs fast enough. “It can’t be,” he mutters to himself with sobs escaping his throat and making it out to the fresh air. “He’s dead. I buried him. I buried him with his sister by my side.” 

“I did not die,” the pirate says. “It’s me, Matteo. I swear it.” 

“Prove it,” Matteo rushes out, lifting his head up, tears tracking down his face, and looks the pirate in the eye, looks for deceit and foolery. “Prove you’re not- not some witch trying to trick me.” 

The man licks his lips again and tilts his head, and Matteo stops breathing at it, at the way this seems so real and so like a dream all at once, like he fell asleep and woke up in the wrong reality. He feels terribly sorry for the Matteo that woke up in his, but he doesn’t think he can go back now, not with all the possibilities of this one. 

“I moved into town when I was young, with my sister, Laura. I worked in your father’s stables, and we talked around the garden when I was letting the horses out to pasture. You were sweet, and lonely in the manor with no one your age, and I shouldn’t have even bothered talking to the lord’s son. But you just were so beautiful, I couldn’t stop myself,” he says, and Matteo feels his heart clench up. “You were the first one to kiss me, under the stars in the summer when it was still warm at night, because you were always braver than me, but I told you I loved you when we snuck out your father’s fancy wine and drank it in the barn. And to my continued amazement, you said it back.” 

Matteo stares at him, this man who knows his life story, him and his love’s story, like it was his own, and doesn’t see a lie in his eyes, even though a part of him wanted to, maybe. The pirate let’s go of one of his hands, and Matteo dare not move in fear of this reality falling apart, of him waking up from this most bizarre dream. The pirate takes his thumb and traces it where the tears have been steadily falling down Matteo’s face. 

“The navy told me I had a duty out at sea, and we made love for a final time out in the fields because we didn’t want your father to hear. You went with me to the docks and kissed me behind a shed and told me to come back,” he continued. 

“You didn’t,” Matteo whispers. 

“I did. I’m here,” the pirate says and takes his other hand to trace the line of Matteo’s cheek. He closes his eyes and hopes this is all real. 

“David,” he says quietly into the space between them.

He can feel his breath over his face, and if he dared open his eyes now, which he did not, he would see that he was close, leaning up into Matteo’s space until he could breathe him in and maybe get a taste. 

“It’s me, my love. I swear it. I’m here.”

“How?” Matteo asks, shaking his head and opening his eyes to look at David through blurry, teared filled eyes. “How is it possible?”

“The pirate Roberts attacked the navy ship, and I fought until I was the last one alive, scrapping the best I could,” David starts to explain. He reaches down to hold onto Matteo’s hands where they were shaking in between them, and Matteo grips onto them hard enough to bruise, hard enough to prove that if he reached out to touch David’s heart and see where he’s kept Matteo’s all these years, he wouldn’t fall right through. “Roberts saw and took a liking to me, said I had a place on his ship if I wanted, and I agreed in fear of death. I proved a worthy pirate,” he says with a little laugh, and Matteo tries to memorize the sound. “He retired last year and asked me to take the title in his stead. I said yes.”

“You’re here,” Matteo says, and it was still unbelievable.

“I’m here,” David repeats, nodding and smiling. “I told you, my love. I would crawl out of my own grave to get back to you. Death cannot stop true love, only delay it for a while.”

Matteo hauled him in then, at the back of his neck and by the hair on the back of his head. He missed his mark at first, his lips landing somewhere off to the side of David’s nose. And David huffs out a breath that’s supposed to be a laugh and puts his palms on the side of Matteo’s neck. He kisses him sweetly, like they haven’t had a single day apart from each other, and they were kissing like this was a hello, even though Matteo wants to kiss him like his heart is breaking and being put together all at once. David kisses him soft and airy, like they’ve got all the time in the world to re-remember the way they fit together, and Matteo just wants to melt into it and believe it, wants to believe that the universe would let him have this to keep.

But something tells him not to. Something tells him to kiss David like he’s back from the dead, and Matteo finally gets to stop counting the seconds since they’ve last saw each other. So, he does. And does, and does, and _does_. And David lets him.

They stop after a while, to catch their breath, to let their hearts have a break from trying to crawl out of their throats. And David let’s go of him only long enough to start a fire before he’s crawling back into Matteo’s space and pulling him to his chest to run his fingers through his hair.

“You should rest,” David says, tracing the edge of his ear.

The fire light dances off the planes of his face, and the shadows make him seem like even more of a work of art. “Will you?” Matteo asks.

David smiles a small, little thing and scoots closer. He shakes his head and says, “No. Couldn’t.”

Matteo wants to ask why, but he has a feeling that he already knows the answer. “Will you be here when I wake up?” He asks instead because his fears were still plucking at the edges of his mind and wouldn’t leave him alone.

David nods. “I swear.”

***

_He’s handed a sheet of paper that’s on fire around the edges, and he tries to read the words, tries to take in what it says, tries to understand, but it’s burning his hands and his heart. And it can’t be true. It can’t be. He said he would come back, he said he would come back from the seas that Matteo had told him were too dangerous for him, and the paper has set his sleeve alight, and he’s being held as he falls down through the floor, being screamed at that he’s on fire, though he’s not feeling any of it, and someone is yelling for him-_

“Matteo,” someone says and shakes his shoulder until he’s awake, and Matteo blinks his eyes open, thinking that surely he must still be in a dream, somewhere far away from where he was because the world has not been this kind to him in a long while, long enough to make him forget what this feels like.

“David?” He whispers, still not believing it to be entirely true.

David runs his fingers down the side of Matteo’s face as he smiles that small smile that has always only been reserved for him. “I must have forgotten how beautiful you are,” he whispers, and Matteo clenches his shirt, feeling it under his fingers but also that he was far away from the moment. “My friend- my crewmate, always told me I was overexaggerating when talking about you, but I think I was underestimating. My heart certainly couldn’t take it if I remembered the god’s honest truth.”

And Matteo hates how quickly he was to be overwhelmed these days, a practice that he had thought he rid himself of long ago. “You flatter me too much,” he whispers back, a lump in his throat.

“Not enough,” David argues quickly and crinkles up his nose as he laughs, which makes Matteo grin. “I have enough summers to make up for.”

Matteo shakes his head, gripping onto David tighter. “Kiss me,” he says because he’s still testing the limits of his reality he has fallen in, and David does because how could he not, how could he deny him when he was finally right in front of him.

“We should keep moving,” David says and stands quickly, dusting the dirt off of his clothes. And he reaches a hand down to Matteo, who can stand perfectly on his own, but grabs it anyways because David is still smiling at him. They don’t let go. “We can make it to the coast by nightfall with good pace.”

“So we are going to your ship?” Matteo asks.

David hums, tugging him along through the forest, careful to dodge roots that were sticking out too much. “We have to get you out of the prince’s sphere as fast as we can,” he says. “And no way faster than that swiftest ship in the seven seas.”

Matteo snorts. “You should be careful with that pride of your,” he says, and David stops to look at him, just for a moment, as if he was remembering something, or trying to. Matteo feels his face heating up under attention he was used to a lifetime ago. “Come on,” he says and tugs David along.

“Tell me a story,” Matteo says after a while with their silence hanging between them, not uncomfortable, never uncomfortable, not with David, though they had too much time to make up for, too many stories that have gone untold, and Matteo was aching to hear some, aching to fill the gaps in the timeline, to know what David has been up to.

“What kind of story?” David asks, swinging their linked fingers together.

“Any story,” he says, happy with just hearing the sound of David’s voice just so he could try and remember the timber in his dreams. “Who is this crewmate of yours?”

David snorts. “Her name is Leonie. Fiercest pirate you’d ever see, more than me, that’s for certain. She would be a much better Dreaded Roberts, if only she wanted to be and freed me of the burden. Instead she’s happy being my second,” he explains. “She has a love, or soon to be, in this little coast town to the west that we drop loot at in the warner season. She runs the tavern and the inn. Sara is her name. Pretty girl. She’s just as gone for Leonie as Leonie is her, but neither of them has yet to make a move.”

“Ah, it is easy to have a crush,” Matteo says, knowing the feeling well enough. “Harder to move it forward.”

“Tell me one of your own,” David insists.

“I’m afraid I don’t have any, not since you’ve gone away,” Matteo says, shaking his head and looking towards the dirt.

“Surely you have at least one.”

Matteo pinches David’s side, if only to distract him. “I’m afraid the most interesting thing to happen to me is being kidnapped. Everything else is terribly dull,” he mutters and hopes that David hears the pleads woven between the words that ask for him to leave the conversation be. “Not much fun to be locked up in a tower.”

David tugs his hand to get him to stop and look at him. “The prince,” he says and rubs his thumb over Matteo’s cheekbone with a kind and patient smile on his face, though his eyes were telling Matteo anything but. “He treats you poorly, doesn’t he?”

“I-“ Matteo swallows, not knowing how to best answer, not knowing how to describe the last five years of waiting, and hiding, and doing his best to not be seen at all without kicking up other things he would rather ignore, memories he wishes never resurfaced, buried with his resentment and spite. “It is not easy to talk about,” he admits, if only to move them away from the subject.

David clicks his tongue and pulls Matteo close to press his lips to Matteo’s forehead. “If only I had found you at the castle instead,” he mutters, and Matteo wonders if David meant to be saying this out loud. “I’d bleed him like a pig for what he’s done.” And Matteo remembers that his David, his sweet and caring David who loved with every fiber in his being, has been living with pirates for the past five years, as if he could ever forget, and one does not live through that without changing, at least a little, at least in ability and temperament. Though Matteo knows that he has changed too, probably in ways equally shocking, equally unfavorable, depending on who was asked. He hopes his shape is still at least recognizable.

“Come,” Matteo says instead, pulling them away from their spot and their thoughts on things neither one of them could control. “We have lots of ground to cover.”

They keep walking.

“Do you hear that?” David asks when the tree line of the forest is in sights, when their prospect of making it out, making it away from this place was seeming greater and greater, until the point that Matteo was almost feeling hopeful.

“Hear what?” Matteo asks, stopping and looking around. Almost, he thinks.

David looks towards the edge of the woods. “Horses,” he says. “I could have sworn I heard horses.”

Matteo looks past the great oaks scattered around them to the fields beyond. And-

“No, no, no, no,” he repeats when he sees them, the figures on the edge of the hillside yonder, and he goes to curl himself around the back of a tree, covering his ears with the bark digging into his spine. “No, no, no.”

“Matteo?” David asks worried, gripping his wrists. “Matteo? What is it?”

“I can’t go back,” Matteo says, trying to choke back the sobs that were coming up. “Don’t make me go back. _Please,_ I-I can’t. David- I _can’t._ ”

“You’re not going back,” David tries to assure him, running his thumbs over Matteo’s cheeks and his palms down the side of his neck. “You’re not.”

Matteo clenches onto his shirt and thinks of the horses that were sure to be getting closer to them. “How do you know? They have the forest surrounded. There’s no way out for us,” he argues and reels David closer as if to hide him further behind the trunk of the tree with him. “I-“

“They cannot have you,” David says, and Matteo has to swallow and close his eyes at the way the fury in David’s irises and the back of his throat is starting to light something in the tips of Matteo’s fingers. “I won’t let them,” David whispers and means it, and Matteo grips at his hair and rests his face against his neck to feel the heat of something else instead.

They hear yelling from beyond the trees, telling them to come out, release the lord, they know they’re in there, and Matteo knows that their minutes are numbered, that they haven’t got much time left in their little, fantasy world where they get to run off into the sunset together on the back of a white horse. He knows what he has to do. But Matteo doesn’t have it in him to be mad about it, to curse the universe for another wrongdoing against him, because he’s already got more time than he thought, already got his love back after he had given up all hope and then some more too that he would ever get to see him again, hear his voice, and feel his touch.

He pulls David in, kisses him hard like the last time on the docks with sailors yelling and waving goodbye to their children and their wives, like it was the last time they might ever get the chance. He wraps his arms around David’s shoulders and holds him close, holds him hard against his chest and breathes him in for another minute.

“I will always love you,” Matteo mutters into David’s shoulder. “I shall never love another.”

David pulls back with frightened eyes and fingers that are clenching onto Matteo’s wrist with a desperation in his grip. “There’s a way out, Matteo.”

“No,” Matteo finds it in him to give David a shaky smile with tears in his eyes. He shakes off his grip and holds gently onto his face to tip a kiss to his forehead. He stands and holds onto David’s hands as he continues to whisper that there’s a way out for them, that they can escape, he’ll think of a plan, just give him a minute. Matteo smiles at him again, finding it to be more sincere than the last. “The stars-“

“Will always lead us back to each other,” David finishes. “Do you still believe that?”

Matteo runs his fingers over the edge of David’s ear. “They already have once. I have not lost my faith in them yet,” he supposes. “Follow my lead.”

“Matteo-“

“Do you trust me?” Matteo interrupts.

“With my life,” David answers without a single beat between.

“Then follow my lead,” Matteo says, pressing a kiss to David’s cheek just to try and remember the taste of him. He goes to pull David away, behind him to the clearing, but David jerks him back.

“Me, too,” he says with a desire for Matteo to understand. “My heart has your name carved upon it.”

Matteo smiles and pulls him behind him. “Follow my lead,” he repeats and squeezes his hand.

He starts to walk out towards the clearing slowly, but David goes to push him behind him, gripping onto his elbow tight, almost like before, when they start to hear the rustling of the horses towards the edge of the woods. David sucks in a breath when they finally cross the tree line only for a sword to tip under his chin. He looks up to the cavalry man.

Matteo looks at the men before him, knowing each of them from the prince’s personal guard, from the mindless guards to the prince’s right hand man, Rugen, setting his eyes on the prince himself at the end, who was just looking back at him, bored but trying his best to look relieved or perhaps even elated at seeing Matteo’s safe return to him. Matteo’s heart sinks, but he hopes it doesn’t show. He doesn’t know what would happen to him later if it did. “My prince,” he says, and David grips onto his elbow harder, leaning back and away from the sword that had already caused a trickle of blood down his throat.

“Matteo,” the prince greets with a tilt of his head. “I had feared the worst for you, my dear.”

David scowls, and Matteo hopes no one notices. “I am- alright. I was rescued by this fellow, Roberts. We were trying to find our way back to the kingdom when we lost our sorts in the forest.”

“How lucky of us to have found you then,” the prince responds, gripping his sword handle as he watches David with squinted eyes.

“Quite,” Matteo says, swallowing, and tries his best to keep his face neutral.

“What are we to do with this one?” Rugen asked, tipping David’s back with the edge of his sword.

“Kill him,” the prince shrugs without any emotion in his tone. 

“No,” Matteo says quickly with a tip of panic, pulling away from David’s grasp, who looks over at him through the corner of his eyes. “Spare him. He saved me and should be rewarded as such.”

The prince looks at him for a moment, seemingly deciding on whether or not to accept Matteo’s pleads, and for a moment Matteo thinks that he won’t, that he hasn’t before and putting all his eggs in one basket was going to be his downfall this time around, David’s downfall, but then the prince nods. “Very well,” he says, holding his hand out to Matteo. “He shall be rewarded then.”

Matteo walks over to the prince’s horses, telling himself to not look back, not look at David’s face that was sure to be riddled with confusion and anguish as he watched Matteo walk away. Matteo looks up at the prince, faltering his lips around a smile. “Thank you… my dear,” he says through gritted teeth and a tight smile and hopes David did not hear. He takes the prince’s hand and hoists himself behind him on the horse. The prince keeps his hand in his grip, and Matteo swallows when it starts to feel itchy in a way that he has grown quite used to.

“Let us return home then,” the prince says, looking over to Rugen who nods.

“Yes,” Matteo says, relishing in his last look of David, who is staring hard at him in return with something in his eyes that Matteo does not have the heart to dissect. “Let us.”

When the prince turns his horse around and gallops off into the distance, Matteo repeats to himself, _don’t look back, don’t look back, don’t look back._ He doesn’t, but yet, he wishes he did.

***

_The flowers were wilted, wilted across the stones underneath them as they bent and curled it’s petals down to wisp across the name beneath, and someone asks a question, asks who the person was, as he goes to clear the dirt and pick up the wilted flowers. And someone asks him a question, but he doesn’t hear it, doesn’t know what they asked as his palms get gritty with the sand and his other palm has blood dripping down his wrists as he grips the roses he found on the walk here. It hurts, it hurts, it hurts. And someone asked a question, and-_

Matteo stares down at his hands, crouched over himself.

“My lord,” someone says behind him.

Matteo turns with a little bit of surprise in his spine. “What is it?” He asks the meek woman by the door who is gripping onto the edge tightly.

“The prince is requesting your presence,” she says.

“Of course,” Matteo says and lifts himself away from his own thoughts. He follows the girl, he had known her name at one point he supposed though he does not now, and followed her to the prince’s study, where him and Rugen were standing over a series of maps, pointing to various things and whispering to themselves.

“Your majesty,” the woman greets and the curtsies before taking her leave.

“Matteo,” the prince says and smiles. It isn’t warm or kind. It never has been, and Matteo had grown quite used to it, quite used to the way his presence had never caused the prince any sort of pleasure that company could witness. It had never really bothered him. He had always known this arrangement to be a convenience for the prince. It had never bothered him until he remembered what real love looked when it reached someone’s eyes, and then, well- everything seemed to bother him now.

It had been a week since he had seen David, and time had never moved slower.

“My lord,” Rugen says and straightens himself to take his leave. His hand rests on the handle of his sword, and Matteo can’t help but notice all of a sudden that he has six fingers. He’s never noticed it before and feels quite startled at the realization now, looking at the way it rests there and thinking about a man with a boyish smile and floppy hair that he thinks he met in a different universe somewhere.

Rugen takes his leave and the prince leans back against the desk. Matteo knows it his cue to go stand in front of him. He is nothing if not well rehearsed for his role. “You asked for me?” Matteo asks.

“I have decided to move our wedding date,” the prince says. “To tomorrow.”

“O-Oh,” Matteo startles out, feeling dread crawl up his spine as the blood in his face seems to drain right out of his entire body through the soles of his feet. “Tomorrow?” He repeats with his tongue thick in his mouth.

“Your absence made me realize how much time we have been wasting,” the prince says simply.

Matteo doesn’t say anything, trying to muster up the strength to twitch the corner of his mouth into a smile, at least enough for this conversation to be over, for him to escape and hide away and think of time wasted, times forgotten, time gone all together, never to get back no matter how hard you try to dig your fingers into it. He thinks whatever his face must be doing as he’s thinking of the old pastures and fields where he used to spend his days, his old home, must make the prince feel a certain way because he reaches out to grab Matteo’s hand.

“Are you not pleased, my dear?” He asks with nothing but a stony tone to his voice, his thumb digging into the center of Matteo’s palm and pressing his thumb back in an uncomfortable angle.

Matteo grits out enough of a smile to ease the prince’s pressure. “I am quite pleased, my dear,” Matteo mutters though he doesn’t mean it, but the prince has never particularly cared about all of that. “Tomorrow will be a day of celebration,” he says with a voice filled with a well-practiced airiness and lightness that could easily be interpreted as being pleased, though he was keeping a tension in his jaw to keep the tears that were building up in his eyes from falling and ruining his performance.

“Good,” the prince says, running his hand down the side of Matteo’s face with a bit of nail, and Matteo holds himself tight in order to not flinch away from it. “Now go. I still have much to plan for tomorrow.”

“Of course,” Matteo says and swallows when he let’s go of Matteo’s hand. He turns to walk away but falters at the door.

“What is it?” The prince asks.

And Matteo turns, filled with a bravery he does not often feel in this castle. “I-“ He stops himself.

“What is it?” The prince repeats with an obvious impatience, his tongue clicking in the rood of his mouth. “I haven’t got all day.”

“I was just wondering about whatever happened to that man,” Matteo rushed out, knowing he would never get the words out if he did not right now.

“Who?”

“The one that saved me,” Matteo says, digging his fingernails into his palm and hoping his heart isn’t written onto his face. “Roberts.”

“Why are you concerned?” The prince asks with a tick in his voice that meant he was getting bored and irritated all at once, that the back of his hand was itching to hit something, though Matteo was far enough away right now that it might not end up being him this time around.

“He rescued me,” Matteo says. “I only wish to make sure the favor was returned in kind.”

The prince hums, satisfied with that answer. “I assure you it was,” he says and looks down at his papers. “You may leave.”

Matteo gets ushered back to his chambers by a boy who looks like he couldn’t be any older than fifteen or so. He stands by the door as the boy throws him a careless and small smile through the closing entryway as if Matteo didn’t know his purpose here when he hears the lock click behind him. He can’t help it when he collapses right there in the middle of the floor, sobbing so hard his entire body shakes with it, gripping his hair and tugging hard enough to feel the strands rip out of his scalp, and finally finding it in him to curse the whole wide world for giving him this life, this life away from joy, and love, and kindness, stuck with a man who wants nothing but power and chaos to follow in his wake and has chose Matteo to be the one by his side, though he wants nothing of the sort.

Pull yourself together _,_ Matteo tells himself after a while, after long enough of him feeling sorry for his pitiful situation and pulls himself over to the window, looking up towards the moon that was shining bright already in the early evening. A harvest moon, he thinks.

“The stars will lead us back,” Matteo tells himself and thinks of his Mama’s voice and David’s smile.

***

_He reaches out for the hand in front of him, the hand that’s slowly slipping away, drifting further and further into the darkness, but there’s something holding him back, a grip on his neck that burns, burns right through his collar and sears his skin, a grip that he’s trying to get away from, get back to a smile that stretches from ear to ear, filled with honey and warm milk, get to the hand that threw love poems into his window at night, and curled through his hair when they were lying out with the cows, and brushed the dirt off of his back when he was bucked off of horses, and- He reaches out for the hand, but he’s too far away-_

“My lord,” someone says and shakes his shoulder.

Matteo wakes up with a start, pushing whoever was near him away with the heel of his hand and pressing himself back into the window. He thinks for a moment that he might fall through, might push himself all the way through the glass and go tumbling down from the tower’s height and onto the cold, hard earth below. That would be an ending, he thinks, though not the one he would like.

“My lord?” The woman from the other days asked with her brows fit together.

“I-“ He looks around, pressing his fingers into the corners of eyes. He must have fallen asleep at the window, looking up at the sky and asking for some sort of escape, some sort of way out. “I apologize.”

“It’s alright,” she says and stands up straight with her hands crossed in front of her. “It’s time to get ready for the wedding.”

“So soon?” Matteo asks, and she nods with a small smile. A royal wedding, he thinks, must be very exciting for her to see, an event that will be the buzz of everyone in town, and she gets to witness it first hand, be a part of the festivities and skim off the meat and the wine that’s left over from the feasts. He wonders if she thinks that he’s in love, that the prince has any sort of fondness for him. He doesn’t know why but it bothers him that she might. “Very well,” he says after a moment and let’s her whisk him away.

He goes through the day in a blur, a blur of hands on him, and people asking him to move this way and that as they hold up fabrics to his face and buttons to his chest, a day of people messing with his hair and smearing colors across his face and herbs on his skin, a day of activity that he can’t even begin to process as it’s happening around him, not really wanting to, somewhere between bored and outraged. He answers questions the best he can, what he thinks of that coat or this, what he thinks the prince will want him to say. Blue is his favorite color, the prince’s, and he tells that to an older woman with her hair twisted into a knot that buttons up a jacket up his chest that is far more ornate than Matteo’s tastes prefer. She tells him that he looks nice in blue, and he wishes that he were wearing red instead.

Eventually, in the early evening, though he’s not entirely sure where the time has gone, he’s handed a fistful of flowers, roses with the thorns carefully plucked off, and ushered to go stand next to the king, the geriatric one who hasn’t been able to remember his own son’s name in years, who introduces himself to Matteo every time they see each other, when Matteo is told he has to dine at the prince’s side and suffer through dull conversations with his hand burning in the prince’s grip. “You look absolutely lovely, young man,” the king says, and Matteo swallows and nods, looping his hand through the king’s elbow.

“What are we doing?” The king asks.

“I’m getting married,” Matteo says and closes his eyes, thinking this might be the first time he’s said it out loud and hating the way the words feel in his mouth.

“Oh, how wonderful,” the king says and pats his hand. “Who to?”

“Your son,” Matteo answers. “The prince.”

“My son?” The king repeats, and Matteo doesn’t have it in him to explain, just smiles lightly and turns towards the doors in front of him, looking down at the flowers that looked like they were fresh picked.

Music starts, and Matteo holds his breath as the doors open. Someone pushes the king to start walking, and Matteo trails just half a step behind him, wishing that the old man’s pace matched his age and he would go slower than he was, if only to postpone this for a few minutes more.

The prince is standing at the end of the aisle, and Matteo looks up at him. He isn’t smiling. But neither is Matteo.

The priest looks at both of them once Matteo gets to the end, and Matteo looks at the space between his eyebrows, clenching onto the roses still and wishing there was a little bit more of a prick in the stems to distract him. “Marriage,” the priest starts with a nasally, high pitched voice that makes Matteo raise his eyebrows quickly at the way it rings in his head with the ugly tone of it. “Marriage is what brings us together. Marriage, the blessed arrangement, the dream within a dream. And love! True love.”

Matteo starts to drown him out, wanting to ignore the words that he must know were lies. This wasn’t a blessed arrangement, or a dream, or true love, or anything with any love in it at all. There was no way any person in this room, the priest, the grooms, the witnesses, the servants, even the florist standing in the back who was picking up flower pedals that had fallen to the floor, thought that this was anything more than what it was. This was a marriage of convenience, of power consolidation with a lord’s popular son in the land who was known for his soft nature and quiet demeanor, of a man’s terribly bloated, narcissistic ego who couldn’t handle that someone had told him no, that he wasn’t interested, to find someone else to ask for a hand of marriage because it certainly wasn’t going to be him. This was a demand made by a prince to the son of a lord who had no position to say no. And if anyone thought it was anything more, that there was any sort of trust or amiability between them, well then, Matteo was terribly offended that they thought so little of him. The longer the priest spoke, the angrier Matteo become.

No- no, this was nothing. Nothing but a formality that required a masquerade of everyone in the castle. His true love was somewhere else, somewhere out at sea, somewhere drifting over the waves with the water being kicked up at his face, with the air around him thick with the smell of salt-

There was shouting in the hall. Matteo didn’t turn to look, figuring it was nothing.

“Skip to the end,” the prince demands with a bite, vibrating with an impatience that Matteo could feel beside him, and je looks at where his fists were curled by his sides out the corner of his eyes.

“Do you have the ring?” The priest asks, seeming to not have taken any offense.

There was more shouting. Matteo turned and looked over his shoulder to see where everyone else was looking between themselves at the interruption.

The prince grabbed Matteo’s wrist, who drops the flowers in the commotion of the action, and shoves a ring onto his finger fast enough to jam against his knuckle and scratch him with his nail. The shouting gets louder, and Matteo is so confused about what could possibly be going on right now, looking quickly at the door.

“Say we’re married,” the prince says to the priest, and Matteo wanted to protest, say that this isn’t how this is supposed to go, but then a guard bursts through the doors and falls flat onto his face right there on the floor. “Say we’re married!” The prince yells, and the priest blinks at him like he was going to run on his own timeline, even though there are guards running around the halls with Rugen following after them.

“You’re married,” he says slowly, as if he didn’t know what was going on, and the prince sneers at him, grabbing onto Matteo’s arm and shoving him into a nearby guard.

“Lock him in the tower,” he tells the guard, and Matteo starts to ask what the hell was happening when he’s whisked away, trying to look behind him to see what was going on but not getting any answers.

The guard pulls him this way and that, even with Matteo digging his nails into his hands and demanding that he let him go this instant, but he doesn’t until he drags Matteo up the stairs to the tower and throws Matteo behind the door. “Let me out!” Matteo screams, pounding his hands on the door. “Let me out, you bastard! What the hell is going on!?”

He continues his screaming for a minute or two, but nothing comes of it. And eventually he just hangs his head in defeat between his shoulders. He scoffs. “I should just off myself,” he says to the door, curling his hand up and hitting it again. “Seems as though I’m on the way anyways.”

“Well, that would surely be a shame,” someone says behind him, and Matteo gasps, turning quickly and holding his arm out in front of him. “There are very few perfect things in this world. Terrible for you to ruin one.”

“David?” Matteo asks, making sure his eyes don’t deceive him and that David really was there, lying on the bed and smirking at him like he was proud of the scare and shock he had just caused.

“Were you expecting someone else?” He asks with a fake frown that then sneaks in a smile anyways.

“Oh, David,” Matteo says and wants to go throw himself into David’s embrace, feel some sort of comfort after today, tell him he was right, that the stars would never keep them apart. But he doesn’t. He holds himself back, and a look of worry and concern crosses over David’s face at the longer it takes. “I have done something terrible. Will you ever forgive me?” Matteo asks when he musters the strength.

“What heinous sin have you committed lately?” David tries to joke.

“I-“ And Matteo has to stop himself to look away for only a second. “I got married,” he says but goes to add on quickly, “But I didn’t want to. It- it just all happened so fast.” He looks down at his hand and rips the ring off of his finger to drop onto the ground with a sneer.

“Is that all?” David asks and rolls his eyes. “Never happened.”

“What?” Matteo asks, watching where the ring rolled under the bed.

“Never happened,” David repeats.

“But it did,” Matteo argues. “I was there. The priest said ‘we’re married’.”

“Ah, but did you say ‘I do’?”

And Matteo has to stop and think about it for a second. “Well,” he says. “No, I suppose we skipped that part.”

“Then you’re not married,” David says easily, and Matteo’s face splits into a grin at the first good news he feels as though he has gotten in a lifetime. “You never said it. You never did it. So not married.”

Matteo throws himself on him then, kisses him hard on the mouth and can’t help but laugh into the side of it, until he feels David’s lack of grip back. “What has happened?” He asks, smoothing his hands over David’s face and through his hair. “Are you okay?”

“Ah well, you see,” David says with a forced airiness to it. “I, perhaps, am slightly- just slightly, paralyzed at the moment.”

“What?”

“It should be remedied soon. At least that’s what the witch doctor said.”

“Witch-“

The prince bound through the door, and Matteo jumps away from David at the sound and feels like he had just been found out, though this was nothing the prince hadn’t known already, maybe not the players, but the plot, that the prince _must_ of known.

“Ah, look who joins us,” David says, sounding almost amused, though Matteo certainly wasn’t. David could win a swordfight with the best of them, most certainly the prince who had a guard willing to fall on any sword in front of him his whole life, but in the current circumstance, Matteo wasn’t so sure. Matteo would rather throw himself on top of David and take any blow that the prince might strike him with than have to watch an unjust and unfair slaughter with a man who didn’t seem to have it in him to stand.

And the prince looks like he was fed up, like he was expecting this in a way, though Matteo couldn’t know how, and was sick of it already. He unsheathes his sword without another word and points it to David. “I’m quite done with you meddling in my affairs at this point,” he spits out. “To the death.”

“No,” David says with a scoff. “To the _pain_ ,” he corrects.

And the prince falters, if only a little. “I’m not sure I’m familiar with that term.” And Matteo has to agree, feeling just the same amount out of sorts that the prince looks.

“Well then, I shall explain,” David says with a certain amount of cruel laced glee in his tone that makes Matteo’s mouth open and then close again. He’s surprised at the same time he isn’t. The boy he used to know would never let his anger out so clearly, let his mean streak out for everyone to see, but this man, this David, has already shown that he was more than willing to do just that. Matteo didn’t dislike it, thinks he might grow and appreciate it, especially at moments like these. “And I’ll be sure to use small words so even you, a warthog faced baboon, could understand.”

“You dare insult me as such?” The prince cries, showing his offense.

“Certainly not my last either,” David promises, and Matteo feels like he wants to laugh at the same time he feels déjà vu. “To the pain means that first you will lose your feet- below the ankle. And then your hands at the wrist. Next will be your nose.”

The prince sighs, bored. “And then my tongue, I suppose. I killed you too quickly the last time. A mistake I will not be duplicating now.”

Matteo looks between them and tries to fill in the blanks.

“I was not finished,” David interrupts. “Next you will lose your left eye, followed by the right.”

“And then my ears,” the prince attempts to finish, waving his hand. “I understand. On with it.”

“Wrong!” David corrects, clicking his tongue. “You will keep your ears, and this is why, so that every shriek, every cry from a child that comes across your absolutely grotesque form will be yours to be cherished. Every babe that weeps at your approach, ever woman who shields her children’s eyes and cries out ‘Dear god, what is that _thing!’_ will echo in your perfect ears. That is what ‘to the pain’ means. It means I leave you in aguish, wallowing in your own disgusting _misery_ forever.”

The prince narrows his eyes, and Matteo feels a little bit lightheaded as he sways from foot to foott. “You’re bluffing.”

“It might very well be, pig, that I’m bluffing. It is indeed conceivable, you miserable, vomitous mass, that I am only lying here because I lack the strength to stand, but then again,” David begins to stand slowly and Matteo holds his breath at the way his gait is unsteady and his hand shakes as it grips the handle of his sword. “But yet, I might find the strength after all.”

His hand grasps the sword and lifts in with a confidence and bravery that few could match, full strength of not. “Drop. Your. Sword,” David demands through gritted teeth, pointing the tip of his blade right between the prince’s eyes, and Matteo remembers his thought earlier, that he would think few here on earth could best David with a sword. The prince must think the same because his sword falls from his hand, and he watches it clatter to the ground with a clang as if he didn’t mean for it to.

“Leave,” David says and flicks his sword to the door a couple of times until the prince gets the message and deserts. “Jesus,” David sighs out when he leaves and collapses back onto the bed, curling his arm around himself. Matteo quickly runs to his side, kneeling down to get a good look.

“That was quite the bluff,” he says breathless.

And David laughs. “I would have found it in me, my dear,” he says and presses their foreheads together. And Matteo believes him.

“We need to get out of here,” Matteo says when he hears shouting from the hallways, fearing the prince would not be so easily outdone, even if he would run scared with his tail tucked between his legs. “Come on,” he says and hoists David up with his arm wrapped around Matteo’s shoulders.

They make it a ways down the corridor, heading towards the stairs, when the boyish man comes bounding up them. “Fuck,” Matteo curses and goes to turn around, trying to flee from someone he had thought was left on a cliffside.

“No, no, he’s with me,” David says and tries to keep Matteo in his place.

“What?” Matteo asks.

“Long story, no time,” David says and turns to the man. “Jonas, where’s the giant?”

“The giant?” Matteo asks.

“Finding us a way out of here,” Jonas responds. “But it is _not_ this way,” he says and pushes the duo to turn back the way they came. “Lots of guards, angry ones, with swords.”

“There’s no way out this way,” Matteo says as Jonas wraps David’s other arm around his own shoulders to pick up the pace, though David’s feet were moving quite swiftly on their own now at this point.

“We’re meeting him at the tower,” Jonas says, and they all start running back that way they came with the yelling getting louder and louder behind them. “This way,” Jonas says, opening a window at the end of the corridor and peering out. “Hey! Over here, you big baboon!” He yells out and waves to someone. He looks back towards the couple with a big smile on his face. “Down we go,” he says as he hoists himself onto the windowsill and over the edge.

The shouting comes closer. 

“Let’s go,” David says, pulling Matteo over, but Matteo takes one looks over the edge and takes a few steps back again, feeling his stomach swoop into the floor and his heart stop beating in his chest all together. “Matteo,” David says. “We don’t have time. We have to go.”

“I can’t,” Matteo says, thinking of the drop, thinking of the distance between the window and the ground and feeling a little woozy with it, feeling like he might vomit as his face felt like it was turning green.

“There’s no other way,” David says and looks down the hall to where the yelling was heard with more and more clarity. “We have to _jump_.”

“I can’t, David,” Matteo says and feels like a fool for it, feels like a damn fool, but his feet are rooted in their spot, not able to look over the edge without just falling into a puddle on the floor.

“Yes, you can,” David says and grips his hands in his with a hard look in his eyes like he wasn’t about to argue with anyone about this, least of all the person he was arguing for. “Do you trust me?”

And Matteo closes his eyes and nods his head. “With my life,” he responds.

“Then trust me on this,” he pleads. “You can do it, Matteo.”

Matteo looks at him for a second then down the hall where the silhouette of a guard could just be seen. “Okay,” he says and swallows down something heavy.

“Okay?”

He nods and feels like it was now or never. “Okay.”

“On the count of three,” David says and pulls him towards the edge with a hard grip.

“One.”

He grips onto Matteo’s hips and steadies him in front of the window.

“Two.”

Matteo closes his eyes and takes a deep breath as he tells himself not to look down. Don’t look down, don’t look down, don’t look down. 

“Three.”

And they’re both jumping, soaring through the air, and Matteo feels the wind getting ripped right out of him as he feels himself falling, falling, falling down, trying not to think about cliff sides and tall ladders and mountains, and they land onto a hay bale. He gulps in a breath as he hoists himself up.

“Come on,” David says, gripping onto Matteo’s elbow to pull him towards a horse and throwing himself up and onto it. Matteo scrambled up on quickly behind him, wrapping his arms around his waist and looking behind where guards are running towards them, torches in hand as they were screaming for them to stop, come back here.

“Let’s go,” Jonas says and takes off to the city edge on his horse. The giant on another one behind him.

“Hold on,” David says over his shoulder, and Matteo grips onto him tighter as David stirs the horse into galloping away.

Matteo looks behind them as he sees the cavalry gaining pace, their mean mugs yelling at the ragtag bunch ahead of them. “We have to go!” Matteo yells and taps onto David’s stomach, as if they didn’t all know that already.

“How many are there?” Jonas yells behind him, and Matteo twists himself to look.

“I can’t tell,” he yells back, trying to figure it out, seeing too many torches and hearing too many people yelling and screaming to try and get an accurate number from a count.

“Just keep going!” David yells, kicking the horse faster and running out of town, running towards the forest across the pasture fields, the other two right on their tail.

And they’re running, and running, and running, and when the horses slow, David kicks it again, yelling encouragement and patting its neck to tell it just a little faster, just a little further. They just needed to go a little further. And they’re running, and running, and running, and time feels as though it’s going so fast and so slow all at once, as if the calvary was a million leagues away and in gripping distance all at one, as if Matteo felt it was untouchable the same time he felt someone’s fingers reach for the back of his coat.

“I think they’ve given up,” Jonas says eventually, slowing his horse when they see no one else following. “We should let the horses rest for a bit then head for the coast in the morning,” he adds, and they all agree. The horses huffing and puffing once they come to a stop just off the forest path.

“We lost them,” David says, dropping himself off the horse and then pulling Matteo off after him.

“We lost them,” Matteo repeats, looking for any signs of torches, or horses, or men, or the prince, or anything at all that might try and drag him back there, kicking and screaming and a whole lot more. But he doesn’t see anything, and then he looks up to the sky and sees the moon through the trees, high and bright up there with the stars twinkling around them like they were watching them, watching over him and his new friends.

And he can’t help it, can’t help whatever is bubbling up in him because then he’s laughing, loud and happy, clutching onto his shirt, almost doubled over with giggles and chuckles spewing out of his mouth for almost no reason at all. And the others start laughing with him, starting with little chuckles that build and build until Jonas is on the ground with tears in his eyes and David is pressing his face into Matteo’s shoulder to try and quiet his own down. And they’re all laughing like children, shrieking and shaking with it, with the adrenaline of the chase having turned into a euphoria that hadn’t quite worn off, and the boisterous happiness that they got away. And Matteo can’t help thinking, his body with joyous tremors running through it, that he’s free. Finally free.

 _Oh god,_ he’s _free._

And then he’s sobbing, and everyone’s laughter dies off as the sound of his wet breaths overtake all of them. He slides down to the ground, gripping the collar of his shirt and crouching over himself, crying fat tears that he wasn’t sure were joy or sadness or rage or something else in between because he doesn’t have to go back. He _never_ has to go back. And oh god, he’s completely liberated for the first time in so long.

He’s free.

“I got you, Matteo,” David says into the crown of his head, pulling Matteo’s fallen form into his chest. “I got you.”

And Matteo doesn’t know how to explain what came over him, how to tell them why he’s laying there in the dirt, bawling his eyes out like a child who misses his mother, so he just clutches onto David’s arms, who are holding him tight. “I’m free,” he says in between his hiccups.

“You’re free,” David agrees, carding his fingers through his hair and hoping that Matteo’s tears falter off. “You’re never going back.”

And Matteo finds the strength to pick himself up and throw his arms around David’s shoulders, even though there are tears are still streaming down his face, and he feels so incredibly hot with the way that tracked down his cheeks. “I told you,” he whispers, sniffling and wiping his nose with the back of his hand.

David runs his palm up and down Matteo’s spine. “What did you tell me?”

“The stars,” Matteo says, clutching onto David’s shirt. “They will always bring us back together.”

“I never should have doubted you, my dear,” David says into his temple and presses a kiss there. “Let’s rest now, yeah?”

***

Matteo doesn’t dream. He thinks it might be the first time in five years he doesn’t, not when the object of them all is right in front of him, smiling like he had seen something sweet.

“What shall we do now?” Matteo asks quietly David in the early morning light, when the other two are still sleeping soundly up against the trees and the horses are enjoying their moments off. Matteo and David have been awake for hours at this point it feels, just looking at each other, running their fingers over anywhere they could reach, feeling like they finally had the time to catch their breath around each other.

David hums, and Matteo’s thumb presses into the side of his mouth until David turns and kisses the pad of it there. “We go to my ship,” he says, scooting in closer.

“I’m not much of a pirate,” Matteo whispers, tugging at the ends of the hair that had fallen into David’s eyes, and he vaguely wonders if he still has that wool hat somewhere, the one his sister made him.

“You’d be a great pirate,” David argues back with a smile.

“And what would I go?”

“Navigation,” David responds. “No one knows the skies better than you, no one more trustworthy to take us where we need to go.”

“Is that what you want?” Matteo asks, nudging their noses together. “For me to become your navigator and sail the seven seas with you?”

“I would like that very much,” David whispers and means it.

Matteo smiles. “As you wish.”

**Author's Note:**

> you can catch my amateur attempts at a mood board for this fic over at my tumblr @[bagels-and-seagulls](https://bagels-and-seagulls.tumblr.com/)


End file.
